Version 1
: Received: 12 May 2023 / Approved: 15 May 2023 / Online: 15 May 2023 (10:53:04 CEST)
Version 2
: Received: 9 August 2023 / Approved: 9 August 2023 / Online: 10 August 2023 (10:30:52 CEST)
Austria, M.; Garcia, J.P.; Caparanga, A.; Tayo, L.; Doma, B., Jr. Designing Microfluidic PCR Chip Device Using CFD Software for the Detection of Malaria. Computation2023, 11, 190.
Austria, M.; Garcia, J.P.; Caparanga, A.; Tayo, L.; Doma, B., Jr. Designing Microfluidic PCR Chip Device Using CFD Software for the Detection of Malaria. Computation 2023, 11, 190.
Austria, M.; Garcia, J.P.; Caparanga, A.; Tayo, L.; Doma, B., Jr. Designing Microfluidic PCR Chip Device Using CFD Software for the Detection of Malaria. Computation2023, 11, 190.
Austria, M.; Garcia, J.P.; Caparanga, A.; Tayo, L.; Doma, B., Jr. Designing Microfluidic PCR Chip Device Using CFD Software for the Detection of Malaria. Computation 2023, 11, 190.
Abstract
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique is one of the molecular methods in amplifying DNA for the detection of malaria. However, the limitations of PCR especially when used for routine clinical practice can hamper its sensitivity and specificity. With that, this study focuses on designing a microfluidic device that will mimic the function of a conventional genus-specific PCR based on 18S rRNA gene to detect malaria parasites (Plasmodium falciparum) at low grade parasitemia. The design was drawn and simulated using ANSYS 14.5 Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The simulation shows that adding loops to the design increases its relative deviation but to a minimal extent as compared to having only a straight path design, which indicates that looping is acceptable in designing a microfluidic device to minimize chip length. Also, increasing the cross-sectional area of the fluid path decreases the efficiency of the design, thus, the design with a relatively smaller cross-sectional area is favored. And lastly, among the three materials utilized, the chip made of polypropylene is the most efficient with a relative deviation of 0.94 as compared to polycarbonate and polydimethylsiloxane which have relative deviations of 2.78 and 1.92, respectively.
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
